PLECTROPHANES NIVALIS : SNOW BUNTING. 23! 



The " Snow-flake " is well named ; it comes and 

 goes with these beautiful crystallizations as if itself 

 one of them, and comes at times only less thickly. 

 Thousands whirl into New England late in the fall, on 

 wings as wayward as those of the storm that urges 

 them on ; but, though thus irregular in their appear- 

 ance, according to stress of weather, no winter passes 

 without its Buntings, and it is not until April that the 

 last of the birds is seen. Under such circumstances 

 the whole of New England is visited, one season or 

 another; but the presence of flocks of Snow-birds in 

 any given locality is fortuitous, and the more so, of 

 course, the farther south be the spot. During excur- 

 sions protracted so far from their summer haunts, and 

 under conditions which leave to the birds little scope 

 for individual preferences, the Buntings are not less 

 gregarious than Red-polls ; being usually found in 

 large assemblies, or not at all. They are terrestrial in 

 habits quite as much so as Shore-larks or Pipits; 

 they run nimbly over the ground, where their food is 

 gleaned, and appear to have some difficulty in perch- 

 ing ; hence, they are usually seen in the most open 

 places, and not in the thickets to which some of the 

 other boreal Finches resort during their visits. The 

 desolation of places exposed in all their nakedness to 

 the fury of mid-winter blasts is relieved by the presence 

 of the hardy creatures ; these " most picturesque of 

 our winter-birds," as Minot says, which " often enliven 

 an otherwise dreary scene, especially when flying; for 

 they then seem almost like an animated storm." 



Snow Buntings are so common in winter, that it need 

 surprise no one to learn that now and then a flock, 

 belated in its spring migration, lingers through the 



